Roy Jenkins Quotes

A social democratic party without deep roots in the working class movement would quickly fade into an unrepresentative intellectual sect

Inheritance Tax; - it is, broadly speaking; a voluntary levy paid by those who distrust their heirs more than they dislike the Inland Revenue

The Labour Party is and always has been an instinctive part of my life

The great disadvantage of our present electoral system is that it freezes the pattern of politics, and holds together the incompatible because everyone assumes that if a party splits it will be electorally slaughtered

The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilised society

There are always great dangers in letting the best be the enemy of the good.

I therefore believe that the politics of the left and centre of this country are frozen in an out-of-date mould which is bad for the political and economic health of Britain and increasingly inhibiting for those who live within the mould. Can it be broken?

There is a lot of talk about a centre party - and that I might lead it. I find this idea profoundly unattractive

The fact is that Harold Wilson is a person no one can like, a person without friends.

The most moving speech I have ever heard was Hugh Gaitskell saying he would 'fight, fight and fight again to save the party we love. That was the right message in 1960, and I believe it is still the right message today.

I do not think you can push public expenditure significantly above 60 per cent and maintain the values of a plural society with adequate freedom of choice. We are here close to one of the frontiers of social democracy.

Many of the early nationalisation measures were right. They have remained part of the social fabric. I favour measures of that type.

Each successive Labour Government has been the most rapacious, doctrinaire and unpatriotic conspiracy to be seen this side of the Iron Curtain.

We must not expect a full-scale peaceful revolution every time a Labour Government is elected

A substantial extension of public ownership is an essential pre-requisite of greater equality of earned income